jimpretzer

strange? cruel? or just is?

Yesterday I saw the first snowdrop blooming in our garden.  Today it is buried in snow.  Tomorrow it will really be buried in snow.  Then, in a while, it will be blooming again.

Girlyman is coming to town!  Valentines Day at the Beachland Ballroom.  Be there or be square.

At long last "Gregor's World" has been revised and submitted, this time to Strange Horizons.  Wish me luck.

Now it's novel writing time (where time = most Friday afternoons).

Too busy (but good busy). Best wishes for all of the above! It's great to have Z home, soon we get X too. Upcoming concerts you should go to: Amory Siverston: Dec 29 8:00P at The Grog Shop or Jan 5, 10:00P at The Barking Spider. Girlyman: Feb 14 at the Beachland Tavern

Good trip. The conference was useful (keeping up to date on new developments & fulfilling continuing education requirements), New York is a lot less intimidating than it used to be, and Zan was able to come up so we could hang out together.

Thursday evening we flew to New York. Zan wasn't going to meet us until Friday but she'd told us about Showgasm because Joe Icanis was going to be performing in it. Our plan was to check into the hotel, then meet Jennie at Showgasm. We were a little worried because our flight was delayed by the FAA's snafu that morning and traffic was slow driving in from La Guardia, but it turned that we had enough time to check in and walk over to the theater in the rain. When we got there, it turned out that the doors didn't open until 10 and we had a little time to kill.

We noticed that the awning over the entrance next door said "The Colbert Report." We checked it out but everything seemed dark and locked up so we went back to Ars Nova, signed in with a very nice guy at the door and waited out of the rain as other people started showing up and Jennie met us. After a little while there was a bustle next door and Stephen Colbert came out with a couple of big guys running interference for him, hopped into a limo, and drove off. That was cool.

Showgasm was even cooler. We liked the venue and it was fun hanging out with Jennie. Joe and Family did a couple of songs and were on stage the whole time accompanying many of the other performers. Joe's songs were really good, he's great live, and the other acts were lots of fun (and fairly strange). To top it off, one of the acts was a cheerleading routine done to "Shots" by Imfao, and they passed out free shots of whiskey.

The next day we attended our conference all day then we were supposed to pick Zan up from Megabus and go see Hair on Broadway. It was a little tense because the bus took twice as long to get from Philly to NYC as usual and it wasn't at all clear if she'd get in in time for us to make it to the show. She got in just in time, had her dinner on the subway from Penn Station to Times Square, we hustled through the crowds, and made it to the show just in time. Great show, lots of fun, and we got to dance on the stage with much of the audience in the finale.

Saturday we had more conference then Jennie met us at the hotel & took us to a little falafel place in Greenwich Village before we went to the show she's stage manager for The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever. The show was lots of fun, hysterically funny at several points. Sadly, the cupcake place we were going to stop at for desert was closed but we found a good gelato place instead and life goes on.

Today we finished the conference, got Zan on the bus to Philly, and flew home.

I think we'll sleep well tonight, but it was a lot more fun that the professional conferences we go to usually are.

I wore my new "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK" T-shirt for racketball and no one noticed.  It must be the wrong crowd.

Most cuisines have a version of fried dough i.e. doughnuts, frybread (Navajo), beignets (N'awlins), etc.  The Belizean version is fryjack, seved for breakfast with syrup or refried beans, or both.  Now that we've been back for a few months, I tried to recreate fryjack from a recipe I found online.  They were tasty but didn't puff up like they should.  Now I've got to figure out how to get them to puff up correctly.  My guess is that its some combination of a) knead them more, b) don't roll them so thin, c) work the shortening in with my fingers rather than cutting it in, and/or d) a little less shortening.  Any bets?  Stay tuned for the results of further experimentation.

Pennsic was an adventure this year.  Between not having enough people there for landgrab, storms, and not having some of the pieces for hooking up the water, shower, and stoves, setup did not go smoothly at all.  Among other things the BAFT (our large common area/rain shelter) was smashed flat by a storm during the first week.  However, everbody rallied around and we recovered.  By Saturday evening the BAFT was back up and shower and stoves were working.  From there on Pennsic was good: hanging out around the fire and talking until all hours, good classes, fencing, shopping, and relaxing.  Bork's Tavern Party went really well again and the Rapier Woods Battle was great fun.  Lots of action, fighting alongside X & Z, and good sportsmanship on all sides.  The Cleftlands unit fought well together and we did a good job of achieving our objectives.  It was a good week totally away from mundane life.

However, the adventure was not over.  After tearing down camp and packing everything into our two cars, the minivan wouldn't start.  It had started fine that morning, it turned over fine, there was no sign of anything being wrong, it just wouldn't start.  After Nial and I fiddled with it for a while, we gave up and called AAA only to find out that it would be several hours until a tow truck could get there (apparently there was only one tow truck covering the whole county).  We discussed the situation and decided to have B, X, & Z drive back because X had to catch a train at 5 a.m. while I dealt with the minivan.  I had pizza with the remaining Bork crew, helped marVid take down his tent, and periodically confirmed that the car still wouldn't start.  Finally the towtruck showed up and offered to tow me to the one garage that was open on Saturday.  He goe the minivan all hooked up to thw towtruck, turned the key, there was a big puff of smoke and it started!  The towtruck driver figured that it had flooded.  Any way, it ran fine and I was able to drive home in the rain rather than spending the rest of the weekend in a garage.

I wasn't even that late getting home.  However, yet more adventure awaited.  When I got home I discovered that Rodents of Unusual Size had invaded while we were gone.  The good news was that they had been neutralized by our perimiter defenses while we were gone.  The bad news was that they had been neutralized by our perimiter defenses while we were gone and had sat for a week.  It was pretty gross but it didn't take long to clean up.  Then all that was left was to do all of X';s laundry and get up at 4 a.m. and take him to the train station.  Despite the tribulations, everybody's spirits were good and we had a great time.

Now we've had a week to recover and we're looking forward to next year.

No, not that kind.  Bruce Holland Rogers writes really good short-short fiction, a complete story in a page or two, and publishes them via email on a subscription basis.  Most of his stories aren't political, they're funny or strange or deep.  However, in response to the situation in Iran he has revised one of his stories and posted it at http://sites.google.com/site/shortshortshort/Home so that you can read it without subscribing.

I recommend it. (I also recommend subscribing.  I believe it is $15 a year for three stories a month)

Our garden's providing a really good harvest of Snap Peas and the Chinese Broccoli and Fava Beans are almost ready.  However, there's a cute little baby bunny who definitely finished off the Green Beans and Chinese Long Beans.  I also suspect the little bugger in the demise of all my Lettuce and Beets.

We have two Norfolk Terriers who one might expect to chase rabbits away but the bunny's small enough to run right right through the fence around the garden and the fence keeps the dogs out.  I could let the dogs in to chase the rabbit but then they'd just eat the vegetables themselves.

I guess I'll just try to find time to plant another round of beans and spray them with garlic and chili peppers this time.  That should work unless this rabbit likes Mexican food.